The Union (007)
The Union is a fictional crime syndicate in the James Bond series written by Raymond Benson. Described by Benson himself as "a blue collar version of SPECTRE...with no qualms of dirty jobs", they are an organisation of murderers, capable of anything from petty theft to large-scale industrial terrorism, aided no end by an uncanny ability to infiltrate law organisations, which makes them impossible to capture. Founding and usurping The neo-Nazi former United States Marine operative and white supremacist militia leader Taylor Michael Harris founded the Union, primarily as a humble organisation of killers from everywhere in the world, but primarily restricted to North America, Western Europe, the former USSR and the Middle East. Soon, Harris himself was killed by the Corsican criminal Olivier Cesari, with the backing of Harris' lieutenants and several minted people. Under Cesari (or Le Gerant, as he preferred to be known), the Union shifted from being another militia to being the most dangerous crime syndicate in the world. History ''High Time to Kill'' MI6 agent James Bond is at the home of the Governor of the Bahamas, an old friend of his, when suddenly, the Governor is shot dead by an assassin. As Bond pursues the assassin, who eventually kills himself so as to avoid interrogation, it turns out the Governor had a severe gambling debt with an unnamed member of the Union ''Doubleshot'' The Union is now in league with Rafael Espada, a Spanish nationalist with ties to the mob, who dreams of taking Gibraltar back for Spain. The Union agrees to support him, by assassinating the Governor of Gibraltar and the British Prime Minister by using a James Bond lookalike, thus severely undermining the British government and tarnishing MI6's credibility, in retaliation for the events in the previous novel. Bond spends most of the novel attempting to track down the Union's headquarters in Morocco, successfully identifying Le Gérant as Olivier Cesari. He is eventually captured by the Union, which was attempting to draw him in all along; however, he manages to escape and foils the Union's plans for Gibraltar by posing as his own double and foiling the assassination attempt. ''Never Dream of Dying'' Things have become progressively worse from the Union's point of view, as Western law-enforcement agencies have declared an all-out war on the Union. Bond and several friends from previous adventures (including Rene Mathis and Marc-Ange Draco) follow the Union to Corsica in an attempt to track down Olivier Cesari before he can carry out his next attack. It is revealed near the end that Marc-Ange is Cesari's uncle, and was working for him all along. However, Bond suspects that Marc-Ange is not being entirely truthful, and feeds him false information in order to plan a surprise attack on the Union headquarters in Corsica; Cesari dies when his helicopter is destroyed, as does Marc-Ange, ending the scourge of the Union once and for all. Category:007 Villains Category:Mercenaries Category:Live Action Villains Category:Movie Villains Category:Organizations Category:Criminals Category:Terrorists Category:Dissolved Organizations Category:Book Villains Category:Lawful Evil Category:Murderer Category:Homicidal Category:Assassins